Serial link is used in many applications. A serial sink comprises a transmitter, a transmission medium, and a receiver. The transmitter transmits onto a first end of the transmission medium a two-level signal representing a serial binary data stream timed in accordance with a first clock. The two-level signal traverses along the transmission medium and evolves into a dispersed signal as it reaches at a second end of the transmission medium due to a dispersion of the transmission medium. The dispersed signal is received by the receiver at the second end of the transmission medium. The receiver equalizes the dispersed signal into an equalized signal to at least partly remedy the dispersion of the transmission medium. The receiver generates a second clock by extracting a timing embedded in the equalized signal, and then it uses the second clock to sample the equalized signal to retrieve the serial binary data stream. Ideally, a timing of the second clock will track a timing of the first clock. In many applications, the first clock may be a spread-spectrum clock (SSC) wherein a low frequency modulation is used to reduce a power spectral density of an electromagnetic emission associated with the clock. For these applications, the frequency modulation of the first clock makes it more difficult for the second clock to track the first clock.